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 could starve for." And once more she turned to the young man. "Do you think that is selfish? Do you think Hyacinthe himself would consent if I did? Never! Ask him!" She strode back to her chair, sank into it, closed her wet eyes, and touched them with a handkerchief. "You will think I give you a scene from some drama of the emotions, I believe," she murmured. "The Aurélie Momoro you knew on the ocean didn't seem to be so excitable a lady, I am sure." Then she opened her eyes, laughed ruefully, and said: "Well, the scene is over. I am rational. What shall we talk about?"

One thing he might have liked to talk about, incidentally, was the gossiping of French servants. The cousin of the femme de chambre had been sufficiently far from the truth in her account of poor Hyacinthe's "badness," he perceived; and he wondered if this lower-world rumour could do the boy any harm. Probably not, he decided; especially since Hyacinthe and his mother were so soon returning to France;—then the thought of their departure gave him the subject she asked for.

"Why are you going to Marseilles?"

"It is only en route. We go at once from there to Paris."